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Deuteronomy 28
New American Standard Bible

The Blessings at Mount Gerizim

28 “(A)Now it shall be, if you diligently [a]obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I am commanding you today, that the Lord your God (B)will put you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings will come to you and (C)reach you if you [b]obey the Lord your God:

3 “Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be (D)in the [c]country.

4 “Blessed will be the [d]children of your womb, the [e]produce of your ground, and the [f]offspring of your animals: the newborn of your herd and the young of your flock.

5 “Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

6 “Blessed will you be (E)when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.

7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be [g]defeated by you; they will go out against you one way and will flee at your presence seven ways. 8 The Lord will command the blessing for you in your [h]barns and in (F)everything that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 (G)The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10 So all the peoples of the earth will see that [i](H)you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will be afraid of you. 11 (I)And the Lord will give you more than enough prosperity, in the [j]children of your womb, in the [k]offspring of your livestock, and in the [l]produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless every work of your hand; and (J)you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13 (K)And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will only be above, and not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you today, to [m]follow them carefully, 14 and (L)do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or the left, to pursue other gods to serve them.

Consequences of Disobedience

15 “(M)But it shall come about, if you do not [n]obey the Lord your God, to be careful to [o]follow all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 “(N)Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the [p]country.

17 “(O)Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

18 “(P)Cursed will be the [q]children of your womb, the [r]produce of your ground, the newborn of your herd, and the offspring of your flock.

19 “(Q)Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.

20 “(R)The Lord will send against you curses, panic, and (S)rebuke, in [s]everything you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until (T)you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have abandoned Me. 21 (U)The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has eliminated you from the land where you are entering to take possession of it. 22 (V)The Lord will strike you with consumption, inflammation, fever, feverish heat, and with [t]the sword, (W)with blight, and with mildew, and they will pursue you until (X)you perish. 23 [u]The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 (Y)The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

25 “(Z)The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways from their presence, and you will (AA)be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 (AB)Your dead bodies will [v]serve as food for all birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

27 “(AC)The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with (AD)tumors, the festering rash, and with scabies, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with insanity, blindness, and with confusion of [w]mind; 29 and you will be (AE)groping about at noon, just as a person who is blind gropes in the darkness, and you will not be successful in your ways; but you will only be [x]oppressed and robbed all the time, with no one to save you. 30 (AF)You will [y]betroth a woman, but another man will [z]violate her; (AG)you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not make use of its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be snatched away from you, and will not [aa]be restored to you; your [ab]sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. 32 (AH)Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing [ac]you can do. 33 (AI)A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your ground and every product of your labor, and you will never be anything but oppressed and mistreated continually. 34 You will also be driven insane by the sight of [ad]what you see. 35 (AJ)The Lord will strike you on the knees and thighs with severe boils from which you cannot be healed, and strike you from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 (AK)The Lord will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, made of (AL)wood and stone. 37 And (AM)you will become an object of horror, a song of mockery, and an object of taunting among all the peoples where the Lord drives you.

38 “(AN)You will bring out a great amount of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because (AO)the locust will devour it. 39 (AP)You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor bring in the harvest, because the worm will eat it. 40 (AQ)You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off prematurely. 41 (AR)You will father sons and daughters but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. 42 (AS)The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground. 43 (AT)The stranger who is among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower. 44 (AU)He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; (AV)he will be the head, and you will be the tail.

45 “So all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you (AW)until you are destroyed, because you would not [ae]obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they will become (AX)a sign and a wonder [af]against you and your [ag]descendants forever.

47 “(AY)Since you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a cheerful heart, in gratitude for the abundance of all things, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, (AZ)in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and devoid of all things; and He (BA)will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

49 “(BB)The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, (BC)as the eagle swoops down; a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation [ah]with a defiant attitude, who will (BD)have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. 51 Furthermore, it will eat the [ai]offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed; a nation that will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the newborn of your cattle or the young of your flock, until they have eliminated you. 52 (BE)And it will besiege you in all your [aj]towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it will besiege you in all your [ak]towns throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you. 53 (BF)Then you will eat the [al]offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will [am]oppress you. 54 The man who is [an]refined and very delicate among you [ao]will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife [ap]he cherishes, and toward the rest of his children who are left, 55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will [aq]oppress you in all your [ar]towns. 56 (BG)The [as]refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and tenderness, [at]will be hostile toward the husband [au]she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, 57 and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her [av]legs, and toward her children to whom she gives birth, because (BH)she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the hardship with which your enemy will [aw]oppress you in your [ax]towns.

58 “If you are not careful to [ay]follow all the words of this Law that are written in this book, to [az](BI)fear this honored and awesome (BJ)name, [ba]the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and [bb]your descendants, [bc]severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. 60 (BK)And He will bring back on you every disease of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which are not written in the book of this Law, the Lord will bring on you (BL)until you are destroyed. 62 Then you will be left few in [bd]number, (BM)whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not [be]obey the Lord your God. 63 And it will come about that, just as the Lord (BN)rejoiced over you to be good to you, and make you numerous, so will the Lord (BO)rejoice over you to wipe you out and destroy you; and you will be (BP)torn away from the land which you are entering to possess. 64 Furthermore, the Lord will (BQ)scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to [bf]the other; and there you will (BR)serve other gods, made of wood and stone, which you and your fathers have not known. 65 (BS)Among those nations you will find no peace, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there (BT)the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. 66 So your lives will be [bg]hanging in doubt before you; and you will be terrified night and day, and have no assurance of your life. 67 (BU)In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And at evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the terror of your heart which you fear, and the sight of your eyes which you will see. 68 And the Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 28:1 Lit listen to the voice of
  2. Deuteronomy 28:2 Lit listen to the voice of
  3. Deuteronomy 28:3 Lit field
  4. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit fruit
  5. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit fruit
  6. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit fruit
  7. Deuteronomy 28:7 Lit struck
  8. Deuteronomy 28:8 Or storehouses
  9. Deuteronomy 28:10 Lit the name of the Lord is called upon you
  10. Deuteronomy 28:11 Lit fruit
  11. Deuteronomy 28:11 Lit fruit
  12. Deuteronomy 28:11 Lit fruit
  13. Deuteronomy 28:13 Lit be careful and to perform
  14. Deuteronomy 28:15 Lit listen to the voice of
  15. Deuteronomy 28:15 Lit perform
  16. Deuteronomy 28:16 Lit field
  17. Deuteronomy 28:18 Lit fruit
  18. Deuteronomy 28:18 Lit fruit
  19. Deuteronomy 28:20 Lit every putting forth of your hand which you do
  20. Deuteronomy 28:22 Another reading is drought
  21. Deuteronomy 28:23 Lit Your
  22. Deuteronomy 28:26 Lit be for
  23. Deuteronomy 28:28 Lit heart
  24. Deuteronomy 28:29 Or exploited
  25. Deuteronomy 28:30 A betrothed couple was considered legally married, but did not yet live together
  26. Deuteronomy 28:30 Or be intimate with
  27. Deuteronomy 28:31 Lit return to
  28. Deuteronomy 28:31 Or flock
  29. Deuteronomy 28:32 Lit to the power of your hand
  30. Deuteronomy 28:34 Lit your eyes which you
  31. Deuteronomy 28:45 Lit listen to the voice of
  32. Deuteronomy 28:46 Or on
  33. Deuteronomy 28:46 Lit seed
  34. Deuteronomy 28:50 Lit defiant-faced
  35. Deuteronomy 28:51 Lit fruit
  36. Deuteronomy 28:52 Lit gates
  37. Deuteronomy 28:52 Lit gates
  38. Deuteronomy 28:53 Lit fruit of your womb
  39. Deuteronomy 28:53 Or torment
  40. Deuteronomy 28:54 Or spoiled and pampered
  41. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit his eye will be evil toward
  42. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit of his breast
  43. Deuteronomy 28:55 Or torment
  44. Deuteronomy 28:55 Lit gates
  45. Deuteronomy 28:56 Or spoiled and pampered
  46. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit her eye shall be evil toward
  47. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit of her breast
  48. Deuteronomy 28:57 Lit feet
  49. Deuteronomy 28:57 Or torment
  50. Deuteronomy 28:57 Lit gates
  51. Deuteronomy 28:58 Lit perform
  52. Deuteronomy 28:58 Or revere
  53. Deuteronomy 28:58 Heb YHWH
  54. Deuteronomy 28:59 Lit plagues on your seed
  55. Deuteronomy 28:59 Lit great
  56. Deuteronomy 28:62 Lit people
  57. Deuteronomy 28:62 Lit listen to the voice of
  58. Deuteronomy 28:64 Lit the end of the earth
  59. Deuteronomy 28:66 Lit be hung for you in front
Close NLT

Deuteronomy 28
New Living Translation

Blessings for Obedience

28 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:

3 Your towns and your fields
    will be blessed.
4 Your children and your crops
    will be blessed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
    will be blessed.
5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
    will be blessed.
6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
    you will be blessed.

7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!

8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.

11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

Curses for Disobedience

15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:

16 Your towns and your fields
    will be cursed.
17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
    will be cursed.
18 Your children and your crops
    will be cursed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
    will be cursed.
19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
    you will be cursed.

20 “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. 21 The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.

25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.

27 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.

30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them. 33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you. 35 The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.

36 “The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.

38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity. 42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.

43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!

45 “If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. 47 If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.

49 “The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death. 52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.

53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children. 55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 56 The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter. 57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.

58 “If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick. 60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief. 61 The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed. 62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.

63 “Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy. 64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you. 68 Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”

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